Search Headlines & Links: September 7, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search
Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we’ve spotted but not blogged
separately:

From The SEW Blog…

RH
Donnelley Buys LocalLaunch
The press release has yet to come out but it’s official that RH Donnelley, the
third largest US yellow pages publisher, has acquired local SEO/SEM firm
LocalLaunch. That means YellowPages.com/AT&T is the only remaining major US
publisher that has not acquired an SEM firm. SuperPages recently bought
Inceptor and Yellow Book purchased ClickForward previously. I’ll do a more
elaborate post on my blog later….

Google
Protecting Itself Or Harming The "Innocent"
Google blocking privacy technology over at Boing Boing has Cory Doctrow
writing up how Google is blocking some proxy servers from making requests. An
attempt by Google to stop those trying to protect themselves from prying eyes?
Many have told him that it’s Google likely stopping automated request from
proxies. That doesn’t let Google off the hook. Cory writes: But that doesn’t
change the essential point: Google is fighting bots by compromising its users’
privacy — the countermeasure is a form of punishing the innocent to get at
the guilty. OK, Cory, let’s spin it around. Let’s say that…

ESPN To
Manage Own Text Ads & Drop Yahoo
AdWeek.com reports that ESPN.com will be dropping Yahoo’s text ads from their
site and replacing it with their own ads. ESPN.com will be using Quigo’s
AdSonar product to manage the auctioning, keyword targeting and placement of
the text ads on the site. AdWeek cites that ESPN may be making this move to
keep a larger share of the ad dollar, where currently Yahoo may be taking 20%
of the ad dollars made on the ESPN.com site….

Former
Google UK Chief Kate Burns Joins AdLink Media Company
Kate Burns, former Google managing director of UK, who has left Google in June
for more family time, is reportedly joining a new firm named AdLink. Burns who
previously worked for AltaVista was the first Google employee outside of the
U.S. Why is Burns coming back so soon? Well she said she has "enjoyed a much
needed break over the past couple of months" but she is "ready to return."…

Digg To
Change System To Stem Gaming; Top Digger Quits
Kevin Ross, founder of Digg.com, wrote that the Digg.com algorithm, for
ranking top stories on the home page and other category pages, will be
changing. Why? Because of other bloggers beginning to publicize that digg is
rigged or at least favors the top 30 or so users (diggers). This notice of an
algorithmic change to come to Digg.com has encouraged the top user,
p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 to leave Digg with a comment he left here….

Google
Wants To Launch Google Video In Japan
Reuters reports that Google is eager to launch the Google Video product in
Japan. Google Japan’s President Norio Murakami said, "We haven’t yet been able
to introduce Google Video in Japan, and hope to do so soon. Going forward,
Google’s services can’t work without cooperation from contents partners." But
it appears Google Japan is serious about launching Google Video in Japan
soon….

Matt
Cutts Doll Gets New Clothes
We mentioned in June how there’s an online Matt Cutts doll, where you can put
some virtual clothing on Google spam fighter Matt Cutts. Good news, Matt fans.
The Matt Cutts Doll has gained some new clothing, creator Evan Bailyn tells
me. Among other things, you can now put him in a ninja outfit, a Hugh Hefner
robe (completely with pipe), a Yahoo shirt (I think that’s new) or position
him with his cat. No, you still can’t put him in a black hat nor switch him
from being a briefs to a boxer guy….

Google
Adjusts Minimum CPC Rates
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning that Google has made
some "minor" adjustments to their minimum CPC prices. In a WebmasterWorld
thread, AdWordsAdvisor explained that Google has "rounded many of the minimum
CPC amounts so that they’ll no longer appear as rather odd amounts."
AdWordsAdvisor continues to explain that this has an impact mostly ‘lower
quality ads,’ ads with low CPC rates. Many AdWords customers have noticed that
many of their keywords have dropped into the ‘inactive keywords’ bucket,
resulting in lost traffic. I have more details at the Search Engine
Roundtable….

How Top
Agencies Leverage Video for Online Advertising Campaigns
Search Engine Strategies has evolved from a conference focusing just about
exclusively on organic optimization to a forum for discussing the wide range
of options available to search marketers. A new panel at the recent San Jose
conference looked at the opportunities available using online video. Guest
writer Brooke Schumacher covered the session for today’s SearchDay article,
Online Video Advertising Builds Momentum….

‘Local
Shopping’ Competition Intensifying
Several years ago I was in a room with Chuck Davis, then CEO of BizRate (Shopzilla),
and pitched him the idea of including local, offline store information in the
company’s database. He cited the complexity of getting the local information
and the absence of a competitive need for it at the time. Times have changed
and local (together with "social shopping") is the next frontier for
comparison engines….

This week, both LinkedIn and Facebook are beefing up their paid social offerings in different ways, while Google seeks to cut off Adwords revenues for fake news sites. And might Google be favouring desktop over its own AMP in its upcoming mobile-first index?

Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.